As a Communist Party congress opens, the pro-market talk from Xi’s first term has faded as China’s priorities turn to economic intervention and supporting state companies

BEIJING—As a new president, Xi Jinping promised to give markets more room in China’s economy. He even considered scrapping a hulking ministry supervising state-owned companies.

Today, Mr. Xi has set aside such notions. In today’s China, state intervention attempts to engineer economic outcomes, ranging from raw-materials prices to the value of stocks and the currency. State-owned corporate giants are bulking up, with private capital funneled into them for support. The agency Mr. Xi toyed with dismantling is back in the driver’s...